let me bring in. Rajeev Kumar. Economist and author. Uh, and also, uh, former vice chairman of NHI Ao Ji Mather is a member of the Rajeev Aabha of the Congress Party. Nadine Thane, spokesperson of the B JP. We also have dran Dan, spokesperson of DMK. Let me bring in Rajeev Kumar. Uh, Rajeev Kumar. I appreciate your time. Uh, I'm looking at this white paper, but you see, a white paper of this nature was necessary at all. I mean, the last two years of U did see a lot of corruption. I was among the reporters who reported on it. What is the need of talking about it right now? After 10 years when you have turned around this economy, you claim to turn around this economy. I mean, I'm talking about the government. Well, I know I. I think it's important to bring out such a paper just to just to, uh, let people know. Uh, you know, what are the alternatives they are facing and for them to make the to make it for them to make an informed choice. Uh, and the paper itself is full of facts and data and been well brought out, you know, so that, uh uh, you know, it is there for everybody. Then, to judge as to what was done and what is now, uh, never any harm in comparing, uh, then and now, uh, and then to and then to improve upon it. But also the fact that they've been able to listen in this, uh, in one place, whatever they've been able to achieve in the last 10 years. And Professor Kumar, you know, the point certainly is that the one of the big takeaways of this white paper is the banking crisis, which they say was one of the most important and infamous legacies of the UP a government. And then it also says that the banking crisis in 2014 was massive and an absolute sum at stake was too large. How did the government really turn around this aspect? You know, And and the larger, pervasive mood which was there of despondency as someone who worked in Nhi ao What was the challenge like? Yeah, And not just to remind you, I also worked as an economic advisor to Dr Manmohan, saying that's between 91 to 95. So I've seen the government at work in, you know, in many, many ways, you know, the banking crisis was the creation of what had become, unfortunately, the phone banking situation under I should take names under the then Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, and this is now documented today, even in the business standard by a sub Romania. The whole banking system had become in some sense, you know, not working on norms or on some processes, but on, you know, but on word of mouth. And as a result of that, a lot of banks had their balance sheets in a very terrible situation. What this government has done is to one capitalise those banks in a major way. I think the two tranches of that recapitalization that they found the money from the budget to recapitalize the public sector banks. Plus they they merged some of the banks, you know to try and you know, try and get them greater strength and scale. So that's how they cleaned up the banking system and which has been a major thing to do now. People have said that at that time the credit growth of from the banking sector was much higher than what it is today. But you know that that credit growth was now it seems clearly was unsustainable. I hope what the government has done, that the credit growth to industry and to infrastructure will increase further than what it is today. But at least the balance sheet would permit them permit that to happen if the right kind of shelf or projects were to be created. And what about the external borrowing? It says that in an era where capital flows dominate, India's external vulnerability shot up because of over dependence on external commercial borrowings. That that's also true, uh, quite significantly. And I and I, that is the That is the reason for which, you know, we had a deceleration of the rupee. Uh, but again, um, I am not so sure that the vulnerability was of the same order as if that was in 89 1989 1990 you know. But the fact that the external commercial borrowings were permitted for the permit for the private sector did mean that could contribute to capital formation in the economy. And they did in some ways. But at the same time it was going out of hand because the ratio of external borrowing total external borrowing to GDP had gone up quite steeply at that time.
